Don't let them cancel these shows!
From:The Detroit Free Press
Date:March 29, 2004
BY MIKE DUFFY
Pump up the emotional volume. It's time to vent.
Yep, it's me again. The Don Quixote of lost eye-candy causes, Captain Video, tilting at television windmills with a sharpened remote control clicker.
It's early spring. Cruel fate may await our favorite, albeit low-rated shows. Is the grim cancellation reaper coming to visit? Or will St. Gilligan of Hope Springs Eternal bestow the blessing of a fall season renewal?
Well, don't just sit there. Let's get ready to grumble.
It's time for Captain Video's Save These Shows 2004.
I select five shows deemed extremely worthy of being invited to the renewal boogaloo party as the networks ponder and prepare to announce their fall schedules in mid-May.
You may agree with my picks; you may not. That's cool.
But hold on, there's more: Network addresses, phone numbers and other feedback options so you can fire off calls, letters or e-mails to support your own favorite shows that may be lingering on some network's endangered entertainment species list.
What shows? Well, my own picks for this year's edition of our annual prime time rescue mission include "Whoopi," "Line of Fire," "Wonderfalls," "The Guardian" and "Angel." The supernatural latter is a real challenge because WB has already announced the show's cancellation and driven a stake through ol' Angel's heart. Horrors!
Of course, that hasn't stopped thousands and thousands of impassioned "Angel" fans from launching a campaign to get another network to revive the series. You can visit www.savingangel.org for crusade details.
Do television viewers campaign in vain to save shows?
Hate to rain pessimism on my own parade, but the answer is usually yes.
"You can count on one hand, even if you've lost a couple fingers, the number of times this sort of thing has had any impact," says Robert Thompson, head of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television. "People going into these campaigns, sad to say, are tilting at some very big windmills."
The teensy handful of shows that have been spared because of a viewer protest? "Cagney & Lacey" was the most notable.
CBS canceled the female cop show, starring Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless, after one season of low ratings in 1982-83. But when outraged fans buried the Eye network in calls and letters, stirring up controversy, the "Cagney & Lacey" ratings shot upward during summer reruns.
The sudden ratings buzz -- plus an Emmy Award for the series -- helped convince CBS to rescind the cancellation and bring the show back in early 1984 to enjoy five more seasons as a popular, critically acclaimed hit.
Three years later, CBS also had second thoughts about the cancellation of "Designing Women." An intense fan campaign led by former Michigan resident Dorothy Swanson and her organization, Viewers for Quality Television, helped change CBS's mind. The Delta Burke sitcom soon became a major hit, and "Designing Women" lasted six more years.
Today the Internet has made it ridiculously easy for TV fans to communicate with one another. And whether it's "Freaks and Geeks" or "Once and Again" or "Angel," online crusades to save beloved, beleaguered shows have become an annual ritual.
"I think people do this for the same reasons they go to funeral receptions or attend good-bye parties when friends move away," says Thompson. "I think TV fans find a lot of comfort in these campaigns."
At the very least, it affords fans a rich, therapeutic opportunity to rant and rave, to share their feelings and talk back to the networks.
Now excuse me while I happily tilt at a few windmills. Hey, TV networks, save these shows:
"The Guardian"(CBS, on hiatus. Returns at 9 p.m. Tuesdays on April 27): A traditional CBS drama about a young Pittsburgh lawyer. Ho hum. Except that Simon Baker's fascinating, layered portrait of a tortured soul, the frequently anguished, misbehaving Nick Fallin, is a quasi-subversive triumph on a play-it-safe network like CBS. Kill "Century City" and renew "The Guardian."
OK, TV Nation, it's your turn. Start your venting engines and rattle the network cage of your choice.
Date:March 29, 2004
BY MIKE DUFFY
Pump up the emotional volume. It's time to vent.
Yep, it's me again. The Don Quixote of lost eye-candy causes, Captain Video, tilting at television windmills with a sharpened remote control clicker.
It's early spring. Cruel fate may await our favorite, albeit low-rated shows. Is the grim cancellation reaper coming to visit? Or will St. Gilligan of Hope Springs Eternal bestow the blessing of a fall season renewal?
Well, don't just sit there. Let's get ready to grumble.
It's time for Captain Video's Save These Shows 2004.
I select five shows deemed extremely worthy of being invited to the renewal boogaloo party as the networks ponder and prepare to announce their fall schedules in mid-May.
You may agree with my picks; you may not. That's cool.
But hold on, there's more: Network addresses, phone numbers and other feedback options so you can fire off calls, letters or e-mails to support your own favorite shows that may be lingering on some network's endangered entertainment species list.
What shows? Well, my own picks for this year's edition of our annual prime time rescue mission include "Whoopi," "Line of Fire," "Wonderfalls," "The Guardian" and "Angel." The supernatural latter is a real challenge because WB has already announced the show's cancellation and driven a stake through ol' Angel's heart. Horrors!
Of course, that hasn't stopped thousands and thousands of impassioned "Angel" fans from launching a campaign to get another network to revive the series. You can visit www.savingangel.org for crusade details.
Do television viewers campaign in vain to save shows?
Hate to rain pessimism on my own parade, but the answer is usually yes.
"You can count on one hand, even if you've lost a couple fingers, the number of times this sort of thing has had any impact," says Robert Thompson, head of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television. "People going into these campaigns, sad to say, are tilting at some very big windmills."
The teensy handful of shows that have been spared because of a viewer protest? "Cagney & Lacey" was the most notable.
CBS canceled the female cop show, starring Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless, after one season of low ratings in 1982-83. But when outraged fans buried the Eye network in calls and letters, stirring up controversy, the "Cagney & Lacey" ratings shot upward during summer reruns.
The sudden ratings buzz -- plus an Emmy Award for the series -- helped convince CBS to rescind the cancellation and bring the show back in early 1984 to enjoy five more seasons as a popular, critically acclaimed hit.
Three years later, CBS also had second thoughts about the cancellation of "Designing Women." An intense fan campaign led by former Michigan resident Dorothy Swanson and her organization, Viewers for Quality Television, helped change CBS's mind. The Delta Burke sitcom soon became a major hit, and "Designing Women" lasted six more years.
Today the Internet has made it ridiculously easy for TV fans to communicate with one another. And whether it's "Freaks and Geeks" or "Once and Again" or "Angel," online crusades to save beloved, beleaguered shows have become an annual ritual.
"I think people do this for the same reasons they go to funeral receptions or attend good-bye parties when friends move away," says Thompson. "I think TV fans find a lot of comfort in these campaigns."
At the very least, it affords fans a rich, therapeutic opportunity to rant and rave, to share their feelings and talk back to the networks.
Now excuse me while I happily tilt at a few windmills. Hey, TV networks, save these shows:
"The Guardian"(CBS, on hiatus. Returns at 9 p.m. Tuesdays on April 27): A traditional CBS drama about a young Pittsburgh lawyer. Ho hum. Except that Simon Baker's fascinating, layered portrait of a tortured soul, the frequently anguished, misbehaving Nick Fallin, is a quasi-subversive triumph on a play-it-safe network like CBS. Kill "Century City" and renew "The Guardian."
OK, TV Nation, it's your turn. Start your venting engines and rattle the network cage of your choice.
posted by nikita | 1:45 AM
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